


Twice Ten Degrees or More

by Whatho



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:18:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whatho/pseuds/Whatho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Some say, he bid his angels turn askance<br/>The poles of earth twice ten degrees or more<br/>From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd<br/>Oblique the centric globe....' - Milton, Paradise Lost</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice Ten Degrees or More

The captain measures the gulf between here and the pale gold smear on the horizon. He's walking the compasses across the ocean, pitting the map with pockmarks. These compasses are fixed: two thirds of his hand-span and he knows the distance to the final hair's breadth. He curls his fingers 'round the mouldering spot and briefly flashes his teeth.

The other lies open and dormant on the far side of the desk. When the ship rolls so hard he has to brace his boots against the chair legs, it slips into the folds of the parchment, crumpling the Caribbean under his palm, skewing true north, pushing all the landmarks out of order.

Eyes shaded, half averted, he props his wrapped hand on its fingertips and creeps spider-like towards the compass, so it will not guess who's coming.

The needle wakes and twitches and spins, and stops, and spins again. Jack draws away sharp as he would from a brand and he beats the map flat, blowing and hissing, patting out embers till his thumping drunkenly echoes in the passage, and he holds his arms wide for silence.

Norrington's footsteps are no longer subtle, but he reels a little less at sea. Jack doesn't want to turn to him and catches him instead in the salt-stained glass; a gently swaying silhouette standing bowed in the doorway.

'Won't your new navigator be missing that?'

Jack flutters one eyelid. Norrington puts half his filthy face into the light.

'Thief'.

'Pirate. Borrowed it. We have our heading. She'll get it back when I need her to.'

Norrington snorts. As he meanders to the captain's side, he doesn't even try to pull his bearing straight or ring from his boot-heels an authoritative click on the planks. But the loll of his head is only half rum and sunstroke, half the arrogant chin-tipping of old.

'Trying to work out if you've the gall to seduce her under my nose?' He nods at the compass.

'Now that, ex-Commodore, under my wise and sage and total jurisdiction, comes under the heading of gross insubordination.'

Jack turns as he speaks, rolling back slightly as he lays eyes on Norrington with grime in all his pores and his tangle of beard and the suddenly stark lines of his wind-roughened features. His uniform hanging in tatters on his breakably slight frame, and his eyes are dull and deep, and he seldom blinks.

'When I inferred, by the by, that you stank to high heaven,' says Sparrow, suddenly cold, 'I was not in any sense jesting.'

Norrington inhales deeply.

'I'm rather surprised at your being able to detect anything untoward, captain. I would've thought you immune.'

'Come on, man.' Norrington looks down at Sparrow's fingers on his cuff and snatches his arm away. Sparrow reels in his chair with a smile. 'There's a lovely china basin in the corner of my cabin. Sort of creamy colour. Gold inlays. Little pink roses all 'round the rim.'

'Thank you. I'll not wash.'

'I could lend you my duckie.'

'I'll not change my scent or my clothes or my face for your comfort. I fancy they suit me.'

He takes the bottle from the corner of the desk, clamps his loosening teeth around the dusty neck and swigs, not casting around for a vessel more becoming. Jack's narrow eyes are on his scraggy throat as he swallows.

'Here.' Norrington plucks the bottle from his mouth and a stream of rum cascades over his chin and into his collar. He puts the back of his wrist to his twisted lips and glances up. Jack grins and tosses the compass across the desk. It spins into Norrington's loosely cupped hand.

'Now, not that you aren't decorative in a dim and dingy light, but why precisely are you in my cabin?'

He looks down, shielding its face from the captain, quickly leaning his own into the shadows. 'I don't need a broken compass to tell me what I want,' he murmurs.

'D'you know what happens when two undecided and run-down yet strangely attractive old sea-dogs hold the compass together?' says Jack, reaching out to lace his jewelled fingers into Norrington's calloused ones. 'The needle points straight upwards.' He gestures obscenely. 'Shatters the glass.'

Norrington slams the compass shut and shies it at Jack's head. One of Jack's flailing arms flies true into its path before it can comically smash his into skull.

'Why am I here?' sneers Norrington. 'I came to gloat, idiot. Why else?'

'If I might be so bold as to venture,' says Jack, 'you're really not in your finest gloating garb.'

He shrugs. 'Then I don't know why I came.'

'Of course you don't.' Jack swipes the bottle of rum back to his end of the table and dismisses Norrington with a languid sweep of his arm. 'Haven't you got something to swab?'

He turns his eyes to the map without waiting for the priceless look on the other man's face. Taking up the pair of compasses, he stabs the sea and measures again the distance he already knows, taking his beat from the even footsteps as Norrington, halfway across the cabin now, walks slow, straight-backed and stiff-legged to the open door.


End file.
